


Aground

by This_Bloody_Cat



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Community: hc_bingo, M/M, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:20:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_Bloody_Cat/pseuds/This_Bloody_Cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every ship sinks on the way down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aground

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elanielyn](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=elanielyn).



> For Ale, because I promised - and then abused Slytherin privilege to fulfil only one third of my promise. Special thanks to Peri for her invaluable help. I couldn't have done this without you.

Once upon a time, there was a child with a shining smile and even brighter dreams, and his name was Theon.

He arrived at Winterfell with a host of armed men―lords and knights of the North, his father's enemies―alone in a mist of wary faces he neither knew nor cared for. He was young and confident. _This is but a great new adventure_ , he told himself, and he believed it, just as he believed Lord Stark when he introduced Theon as his ward.

It hardly mattered if no one else did. 

* * *

They talked about him, all of them. 

“The kraken's spawn,” the men muttered into their cups as he walked past them, “that Greyjoy whelp,” and some of them would curse then, or spit on the ground. They fooled no one. What they really meant to say was, _Pirates, raiders the lot of them._ They meant, _Never trust them ironmen where you can't see them. Not a drop of honour in their blood._

They called him worse things to his face―things that rankled, made little Theon ball his tiny fists tight as shame burned hot and dark and _angry_ everywhere, unconstrained. “You're just a token of good will, boy,” they said, “leverage, to make sure daddy won't go forgetting his vows again.” 

Hostage. Ned Stark's prisoner for life.

They're wrong. They're all wrong.

Theon is no victim, he never was; he is ironborn, and he'll be a lord someday, just like Robb. He'll have men and lands of his own, a great army, and maybe he'll march it on them one day, make them all swallow their insults... but that will be then. Now it's shy smiles and tentative peace offerings, and the young lord of Winterfell looking up at him with pride in his eyes. “Brother,” he calls Theon, and Theon had brothers once. Two of them, and a sister. He remembers.

“All your brothers are dead now. Slain in battle,” his father had said. Perhaps his father wasn't quite right either.

* * *

In candlelit rooms their shadows dance around them, melting into one another as they do. 

Theon's wrists are pressed against the wall, firmly held in place by Robb's hands. He knows they'll scrape; the stone will leave tiny scratches on his skin, but Theon can't bring himself to care—he's had worse just from sword training, and yet sword training has never felt this good. 

Robb's lips are soft upon his, and warm, so warm, and Theon welcomes them, him, the heat. He misses the sun even now, the way it used to burn salt and sand into his skin. Ruthless, but much less so than the pale chill of Winterfell—as lifeless as the eyes of the stone kings and queens beneath the keep, but much more deadly in its stillness, forever trying to smother him with its icy fingers.

He hasn't forgotten. Theon's dreams still smell of summer and sea-salt, but his days feel naked without sunlight. Theon can't ever get warm enough, but Robb is fire. Robb is hot blood and scorching kisses, but most importantly, Robb is _his_ , his brother, his... 

Theon is ironborn, and he takes what he wants.

* * *

He never questions it when Robb slips into his tent at night, when he's pushed down onto a pile of furs and pillows as Robb's fingers paint strategy maps all over his skin. It's frantic, desperate, raw, and still Theon has to bite back a moan as Robb's tongue burns endless body counts into his thighs.

They're at war, and this time it's Robb who's stranded in a sea of strangers, desperately trying to find some sense of comfort. An ugly world awaits them both outside, but in here they exist together. 

Some nights Theon whispers against Robb's lips, "Now and always," just a quiet prayer because he needs to, because he can, because he can't stop himself. Because that's how long his love will last. Every time, Robb repeats the words back at him, but clearly doesn't know what they mean. He can't know, because if he did he would be lying, and Robb would never lie to him. 

It's a dangerous game they play, a well-kept secret, _their_ secret that no one must know. And yet, Theon sometimes wonders if the men sense it somehow, because while they talk about him still, now it's mostly in hushed whispers. 

* * *

Robb slips a light silver chain around Theon's neck the night before he leaves for Pyke. 

“It'll bring you luck,” he says solemnly, and Theon thinks it's not luck he needs. What he needs is the same thing he's running from, or at least for them both to have been born in a different time, a different land, somewhere where having a future together is not a complete impossibility. Robb is a king now, and every king needs a queen, not a pirate lord—eventually, he'll have to marry, and it obviously won't be to Theon. 

Theon is ironborn, but some things were never his to take.

* * * 

As he holds Robb's letter over the flickering flame of a candle, Theon thinks about dreams, about the white winters of the North and the deceitful allure of the deep blue sea, almost black at times, full of mysteries... 

He used to like the scent of dreams: dreams smelt like waves and seashells and reminded him of home, of a family he'd once lost; now his dreams smell like disappointment and regret and home isn't the great place he'd imagined it to be. His real family never wanted him back, and the fake one he left behind will soon want him dead. 

Theon wonders with a bitter smile if perhaps the northmen were right about him all along. Perhaps he's not to be trusted, perhaps he never was, never knew how. For Robb, he would have tried his hardest to learn, to become that person. He should have.

In the end, it's an easy choice to make. The future is dark and inscrutable, much like the ocean, and there are hundreds of possible paths, but only one of them where the outcome is always certain. 

Robb will never forgive him for what he's about to do. Theon can only hope, in time, he will forget.


End file.
